'Collateral Damage'

NOW SHOWING AT GAYLORD:

February 11, 2002|By Scott Bowles

An explosion rocks a downtown building. Civilians die. A terrorist boasts from his homeland hideout that the mission was a blessed success. It's no news clip. It's the crux of Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Collateral Damage," which opens Friday after being shelved since its original Oct. 5 release date because of Sept. 11. The reasons for pulling the film are clear. Collateral parallels real-life events in ways its writers could not have foreseen.

A firefighter struggles with the loss of his wife and son. Terrorists threaten to further "bring the war home" to Americans. Civilians are acceptable casualties, and fears of future bombings abound.

Schwarzenegger says he and producers decided to delay the film's release out of respect for the World Trade Center and Pentagon victims. But now, he says, "I think people want to get into the minds of people who do this kind of thing. And they want to see Americans kick their butts."

Advertisement

Not everyone. Some Colombian activists have protested the film, saying it paints the nation as a country of terrorists and drug runners.

"It is discriminatory against Colombians," says the Rev. Brian Jordan, a Franciscan priest who ministers to workers at Ground Zero. "The sins of the few should not be inflicted on the rest."

Hollywood shook like the rest of the nation after the attacks and pulled several films, including the Tim Allen comedy "Big Trouble," about a nuclear bomb loose in Miami, now opening April 5; and John Woo's World War II epic, "Windtalkers," out June 14.

In hindsight, studios may have had little to worry about. Violent films, particularly those involving the military, have not been hurt by the terrorist attacks. And some may have benefited.

Audiences were not turned off by Denzel Washington's brutal L.A. cop in "Training Day," which, after opening Oct. 7, grossed more than $76 million domestically. The flag-waving "Behind Enemy Lines," pushed up to Nov. 17 from a January release, has brought in $57 million. "Black Hawk Down," which also moved up from a March release, has grossed $75 million and remains No. 1 for the third consecutive week.

But not all films flourished in their return. Ed Burns' critically assailed romantic comedy "Sidewalks of New York," delayed two months by the attacks, quickly fizzled. The independent film grossed $2.4 million.

Military action has soared, however, and the assault will continue with "Hart's War," the Bruce Willis World War II film opening Feb. 15, and Mel Gibson's "We Were Soldiers," which hits screens March 1.

"There's more of a market for action and war films now," says Robert Bucksbaum of box-office tracking firm Reel Source. He says Collateral could gross more than $60 million domestically, considerably better than its outlook when it was to be released in October.

"It's as close to real-life events as any movie has gotten," he says. "That will help, not hurt."

Schwarzenegger says his character was originally a CIA agent, but he insisted on playing a firefighter. Studio executives "asked me if (a firefighter) would be gutsy enough. I guess that question was answered on its own."

Director Andrew Davis says he never intended to make a film that mirrored reality but had a political lesson in mind. "You can't ignore the world around you and think you're invulnerable," he says. "That's just going to lead to violence that begets violence, which is what we're seeing now."